Postcapitalism & Beautiful Alternatives: A brief introduction to The Rules

Something is deeply wrong with the way the world works. You know it, and I know it.

We are told everyday that unfettered economic growth and the accumulation of personal wealth is desirable, yet, though we may not always have the words to challenge it, we know the mantra ‘greed is good’ cannot be true: we see everyday and everywhere the toll it is taking on our lives, our communities and our environment.

Thanks predominantly to the overconsumption of natural resources by rich countries, the entire planet faces ecological collapse. We are overshooting the Earth’s biocapacity by 62% each year, and, as a result, species are dying off between 1,000 and 10,000 times the normal rate.

Corporations and states continue to treat people as commodities, our suffering and deaths are considered “negative externalities”; sacrifices at the altar of GDP growth. Inequality continues to rise, leading to social breakdown and vast waves of migration. Just 5 men have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3 billion people.

If human imagination and potential are boundless, why must we believe, when it comes to our economic model, that ‘there is no alternative’? Is this really the best we can do – continue to wait for wealth to trickle down?

At The Rules we believe that we are living within a system that by its very design values profit over people and planet. Capitalism stems from the same logic that saw it fit to sell people as slaves across the Atlantic; a logic that has given us sweatshops, and conflict minerals; farmers’ suicides and oil spills;.

The Rules is here to help midwife the transition to a post-capitalist world. As a time-bound project, we will exist until 2023, working to expose the core logic of our global system.

We are here to connect the dots between various local struggles, and between the millions of us who are feeling the pain of this failing system.

Stories are powerful. The status quo is set by the stories we have been told for decades, and so to challenge it, we must tell stories of beautiful alternatives and amplify those told by others.

Together, we have the power to change the stories, change our cultures and change the rules.

WRITTEN BY

The Rules

The Rules is a worldwide network of activists, artists, writers, farmers, peasants, students, workers, designers, hackers, spiritualists and dreamers, linking up, pushing the global narrative in a new direction.We focus on five strategic areas that are in desperate need of radical reform: Money, Power, Secrecy, Ideas and The Commons. We work with social movements, community leaders, cultural players, and everyday people with common adversaries and common goals. We explore world-changing ideas, dig up dirt on corporations and corrupt CEO’s, hurl metaphysical stones at governmental and societal repression, and offer material support to emerging movements and spontaneous activist fissures, wherever they occur.